An Investigation of the Comparative Moderating Effects of Need for Autonomy on the Autonomy-Performance Relationship Between Insurance Agents and Retail Salespersons

Comparative data from two diverse types of salespersons, insurance agents and retail salespersons, were investigated to determine the similarities and differences among salespeople in terms of their need for autonomy, perceived job autonomy, the relationship between autonomy and salesperson performance and the comparative moderating effects of need for autonomy on this relationship. Although insurance agents perceive their job environment to have more organizationally mediated autonomy than that of retail salespersons, both retail and insurance salespersons were found to have a low (and not significantly different) need for autonomy. The strength of the relationship between perceived autonomy and performance also proved to be relatively low and not significantly different. The lack of support for concluding that the moderating effects of need for autonomy on the autonomy-performance relationship is pervasive across diverse types of selling may be due to the inability of the scales to measure these perceptions for job specific situations. Additional research is needed to determine if more situationally job specific measures of need for autonomy, perceived autonomy, and salesperson/agent performance will more clearly define the relationship among these variables. This would result in the availability of better tools for sales managers to use in managing salesperson autonomy.